A little cyber car show... Sporadically updated, Just A Car Geek is an old school blog that focuses on relatively inexpensive, unusual, rare and forgotten cars. Lots of opinions, links to cool and interesting sites, useless & useful trivia, cars for sale, news, a few stories and more... This is not your typical car blog...
Comments and submissions are welcomed and encouraged.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

1985 Renault Alliance Convertible - This car has 340 miles on it. That's not a typo... Three hundred and forty miles.

The seller, who has owned it for all of its 26 years, does not explain why it has just 340 miles. Did he forget that he bought it? Did he misplace it? ("Honey, did you see where I left the Renault?") Did he grow bored with it after a week?

Not counting the GTA, the Alliance convertible is the only Alliance worth owning. They looked pretty good with the top down and - for reasons I don't know - seemed to be put together better than the sedans. I have a friend who has owned one for 15 years and says it's more fun to drive than his (many) sports cars.

If you missed your chance to buy a new Alliance convertible back in 1985, here's your second chance. I can say with 99.99% certainty that you will never have this chance again.

The seller includes a link to a Flickr page with more pictures of this car. Find it here.

1965 Toyota Stout - This is really cool. When it came to designing vehicles, the Japanese, up until the 1980s or so, were the champs when it came to bizarre styling touches. (Or at least co-champs with Citroen.)

Take a walk around a Stout and it looks pretty normal, almost bland, until you get to the front end. The turn signals are mounted at the end of tunnels (for lack of a better word) that run down the tops of the fenders. There's no really good reason for this, they would have worked just as well if they were mounted in the grille or bumper, Toyota just did it to be different. It looks pretty cool.

Except for the body, the Stout is pretty traditional. It has a 4 cylinder engine, a 4 speed transmission with a column mounted shifter and drum brakes all around.

The seller says that just 500 Stouts made their way to the US and I have no reason to doubt that figure. I suspect that very, very few have survived as these vehicles were very prone to rust.

A big thanks to JaCG reader, Russ, for sending me the link to this truck!

1973 Fiat 850 - The above Lancia and Toyota were notorious for their ability to rust. They were pretty sturdy though, compared to this car. The Fiat 850 was damn near water soluble.

It's really too bad that so few of these cars survive. They're great looking, a blast to drive, and a cool rear-engine alternative to an MG Midget or Triumph Spitfire.

This car has either been restored or somehow escaped the dreaded tin-worm. It's a very nice looking car. The seller says it has new brakes, clutch, water pump, and has been recently serviced. It has a new top and the seats were redone "a few years ago".

Yeah, a few days ago I stumbled across the Renault myself and I knew someone would submit it. That's even wackier than the car posted last year which was said to be the first Alliance ever built and thus only had 375 miles on it. I have no earthly idea why someone would save an '85 convertible as if they thought it would end up in a museum one day.

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